Hi, my name is Erin, and I'm bad at taking breaks. Notoriously bad at it. I am anything but a role model for self-care, no matter how many posts I write about it, trying to convince myself otherwise. Exhibit 1: I am about to write a blog post about how I'm giving myself a break … Continue reading Make Creative Space: Shifting Gears to Slow My Roll
Tag: process not perfection
Don’t Let Craft Advice Silence Your Authorial Voice
The internet is full of craft advice for writers. Some of it is even good advice. All of it purports to make your writing better, more readable, more relatable, more salable. I’m not talking about grammar advice, like how to punctuate dialogue. That’s a mechanical skill. It’s mostly objective, at least within its specific context … Continue reading Don’t Let Craft Advice Silence Your Authorial Voice
It’s Never Too Late (or Early) to Start Your Writing Career
Writing has no age restrictions. This should go without saying. And yet. Every few weeks, it seems, the discourse comes around again. Specifically, it tends to revolve around the age of debut authors in particular. Usually it starts because someone relatively young comments that they feel like they have to get their first book deal … Continue reading It’s Never Too Late (or Early) to Start Your Writing Career
Growth Is a Spiral: Repetition and Return in Practice
The more things stay the same, the more they change. What? No, I didn't accidentally write that backwards. Because the thing about growth, about learning, is that it doesn’t travel in a straight line. It often doesn’t feel like growth in the moment. It often feels circular, like repetition, like return. It can feel like … Continue reading Growth Is a Spiral: Repetition and Return in Practice
Relearning My Mind: ADHD and My Writing Journey
Welcome to my brain circus! It’s Disability Awareness Month, and I’m a writer with Attention Deficit Disorder. That makes this as good a time as any to share my experience of learning late in life that I'm neurodivergent, how my diagnosis has shifted my self-image, and how adjusting my brain chemicals has brought new ease … Continue reading Relearning My Mind: ADHD and My Writing Journey
Writing While the World Burns
Lately, I’ve had apocalypse on the brain. A strange duality exists between my near-daily practice of creating, i.e. writing and revising, while chaos and catastrophe swirls as a near-daily occurrence in the world at large. This is not an upbeat advice post, so I apologize in advance. Feel free to skip this if it’s not … Continue reading Writing While the World Burns
#WriterInMotion Week 1: thoughts on process (and vulnerability)
I've spent last night and this morning reading the lovely first drafts of my fellow Writers in Motion. It's fascinating to see how many unique and creative directions one prompt can take in the hands of different writers: dark, surreal sci-fi, a creepy MG tale with an unseen threat, a high-stakes story of spies on … Continue reading #WriterInMotion Week 1: thoughts on process (and vulnerability)